Gosseries and the Problem of Future People

Abstract

Gosseries argues that we have moral duties to future people, since we should not discriminate against people based on when they live—that all people, at all times, have an equal right to the basic requirements of a good life. I argue that in making this claim Gosseries is committed to the real existence of these future people, and in making this commitment he is also committed to a metaphysical view where the future is fixed and unchanging. This introduces a problem that Gosseries does not address: that a fixed future makes any kind of moral deliberation pointless.